19th c. Lit: Crisis Within

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

By the second half of the nineteenth century, Russian writers came increasingly to believe that their world rested on shifting sands. They conveyed their sense of unease on the pages of some of the greatest novels ever written, employing the Russian family as an exemplar of Russian society as a whole and uncovering the fault lines that would ultimately lead to the dissolution of both. This course focuses specifically on Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina," Dostoevsky's "Brothers Karamazov," and Bely's "Petersburg." (Taught in English; satisfies the HUMW-II requirement.)